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Building block infrastructure for Malaysia’s Smart ambitions

Mellanox Technologies recently announced plans to expand presence and increase investment in Malaysia, a move which Hong Mun Loong, Malaysia Country Manager, described as coming at a time when “… the country is ramping up its efforts to see its ICT roadmap to fruition.”

He also said, “The country’s ICT custodian, Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC), noted that MSC Malaysia — a national initiative designed to attract world-class technology companies to the country — reported a USD3.88 billion in export sales in 2015, representing an 18-percent increase over 2014.”

According to him, the MSC Malaysia footprint has expanded to include 42 locations across the country, hosting more than 3,800 companies from more than 40 countries, employing more than 150,000 high-income knowledge workers, 85 percent which are Malaysians.

EITN has a chat with Hong Mun Loong about how Mellanox’s timely move can leverage this current industry scenario which sees AT Kearney’s Global Services Location Index place Malaysia in a top three ranking since 2005, with India and China just ahead.

EITN: How can Mellanox’s solutions help Malaysia in its ambition to be a digital economy hub?

Hong: Malaysia’s investment in Big Data, data centers and the Cloud is impressive. With a year-over-year growth of more than 20 percent in the last five years, the field of digital data management is maturing rapidly. Mellanox’s investment in Malaysia looks to complement Malaysia’s advancing digital economy by providing intelligent 10, 25, 40, 50 and 100Gb/s interconnect solutions that serve today’s and future needs in Malaysia. This will enable organisations to be less concerned about today’s technological demands and to concentrate on running their business, resulting in unparalleled operating efficiency for these organisations.

Mellanox is also a leader in providing building block infrastructure for mega technology trends like Smart Cities and Artificial Intelligence. Our knowledge and solutions will play an important role in preparing Malaysia to become a digital economy hub.

EITN: Could you share about your existing customer base in Malaysia/region?

Hong: We are unable to share due to NDA in place. Having said that, our customer base come from various verticals from Commercial, Education, Oil & Gas, Financial Institution and we expect this to grow further as new applications and modernised infrastructure are needed to support Cloud, Big Data, Machine Learning, and Software Defined Infrastructure that can help to drive business efficiency.

EITN: What are the applications for your solutions and in what industries?

Areas that are trending strongly include Cognitive Computing, and Mellanox also supplies solutions in Artificial Intelligence, Deep Learning and Machine Learning environments.

EITN: What is your strategy to expand your footprint into other industries?

Hong: Mellanox are leaders in state of the art, high bandwidth, high performance inter-connect solutions. We are a big believer in educating and enabling the market and helping it to be ready to embrace the latest technology trends. Hence, as part of our strategy to expand footprint, we will be providing segment specific workshops, theme-based on site POC (proof of concepts), demonstrations, solution architecting in focused customer segments in collaboration with our channel and OEM partners.EITN: Why did you decide to invest in Malaysia?

Hong: Investing in Malaysia makes good economic sense as this will bring Mellanox closer to our customers and increase our ability to better serve the demands of the Malaysian market. We are committed to working with Malaysia and are excited to see great things from Malaysia’s increasingly progressive digital economy.

Additionally, we are pleased to align ourselves with the ambition and appetite of Malaysia as it accelerates in transforming itself into a digital economy. Mellanox has extensive experience in other markets and believe the experience and best practices we have can be beneficial to Malaysia, shortening its learning curve.

EITN: What are some of the mid-term goals you have set for yourself and what can the industry expect to see when the time comes?

Hong: We will continue to invest and support the growth of our Malaysia customers. We endeavour to continue providing best-of-breed solutions and professional services to ensure our customers get the best ROI, future-proof their environments and that our partners enjoy robust ROP (returns-on-partnership).

The industry will see more smart solutions being deployed and customers benefiting from deciding on Mellanox. We can expect even more success stories, reference cases and use cases from Malaysia.

EITN: Could you also share your technology and business roadmap for Southeast Asia for the next 3 to 5 years?

Hong: We regularly provide technology updates from our corporate perspective and they apply to key markets like Malaysia, and because Mellanox Technologies spends a significant amount of dollars on R&D, we’re able to bring new innovations (eg. 200G interconnect solutions, IP Security) that are always one generation ahead of our competitors, to our customers.

Business-wise, we have started investing in resources, infrastructure, demo assets to further support our customers and partners. We will take on a vertical and solution focused segment approach – where we will intensify our footprint in marketing tradeshow, education, workshops, customer proof of concept (POC).

We have also set up an Executive Briefing Center (EBC) in Singapore where we invite our customers for solution briefings, technology deep-dives and updates from industry thought-leaders. We also invite key customers to share best practices in their deployment strategy that will benefit other customer attendees. It consists of an advance Solutions Lab where we can do live demos and POC in a heterogeneous environment.

We also work closely with each of the local government bodies to drive collaborations in leveraging mega technology trends by supporting and providing the knowledge of how Mellanox solutions can accelerate their respective causes in driving toward smart nation goals.